Daring to Redefine History: Charmaine Watkiss Transforms a Museum’s Narrative
Ever wondered what it takes to challenge centuries-old narratives? Artist Charmaine Watkiss is doing just that, turning the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter upside down with her bold, thought-provoking work. But here’s where it gets controversial: Watkiss isn’t just creating art—she’s reclaiming forgotten stories, especially those of the African diaspora, and placing them front and center. And this is the part most people miss: her journey is as much about personal transformation as it is about reshaping cultural legacies.
Growing up, Watkiss often visited G. Baldwin & Co., a historic herbalist shop in London’s Elephant and Castle, where her mother, part of the Windrush generation, sourced medicinal herbs like sarsaparilla. This childhood connection to natural remedies sparked Watkiss’s fascination with the botanical ties between the Caribbean, the UK, and Africa—a link deeply rooted in the transatlantic slave trade. “It struck me that this knowledge must have traveled with the enslaved,” she reflects. This realization birthed The Seed Keepers, her 2021 gallery debut, featuring large-scale portraits of women of African descent alongside medicinal plants. These works, inspired by historical botanical illustrations, highlight how herbal wisdom became a lifeline for the enslaved.
At RAMM, Watkiss was invited to engage with the museum’s collection, but she quickly noticed a glaring omission: the story of the African diaspora was absent from the West Africa display. “I felt compelled to speak for my ancestors—those taken from the continent—through material and form,” she explains. Breaking from her usual paper-based drawings, Watkiss turned to sculpture after encountering RAMM’s mask collection. Her piece, inspired by the mukenga helmet masks of the Kuba kingdom, now sits alongside other African masks, including some on loan from the British Museum. “It’s a dialogue,” she notes, “a way to bridge gaps in history.” Her commission also includes a watercolor incorporating museum holdings like a nkisi figure, traditionally used for healing and protection.
Watkiss’s path to becoming an artist was anything but linear. In the late 1980s, she worked as a footwear designer but faced racial discrimination. Later, while studying film, a tutor claimed, ‘Black people made no contribution to Western civilization.’ Determined to prove him wrong, she wrote her dissertation on the subject. In 2015, she set a five-year goal: to become an artist. “I had no idea how it would happen,” she admits. Through a foundation course at City Lit and an MA in illustration at Wimbledon School of Art, she took a leap of faith, shutting down her old career website in 2020. She credits her courage partly to her reiki practice: “It’s about trusting the unknown, believing you’ll land safely.”
This isn’t Watkiss’s first museum intervention. As a research fellow at the Sloane Lab, she explored the healing plant knowledge of Hans Sloane, whose collection founded the British Museum. Sloane, a slave owner who profited from Jamaican sugar plantations, documented an 18th-century woman who healed a growth on his foot. Watkiss reimagines this woman as a “queen in her own country,” centering her in a narrative where she was once marginalized. Her work now hangs alongside Sloane’s portrait at London’s National Portrait Gallery—a powerful act of reclamation.
Working with the legacies of race and enslavement in Western collections is no small feat. “The trauma is generational, embedded in our DNA,” Watkiss observes. “Growing up in Western culture, being seen a certain way—it adds another layer.” In her Sloane response, she replaces him at the story’s center with the healer, depicted on a throne adorned with symbols like the sankofa bird, representing the Akan philosophy of ‘looking back to move forward.’
But here’s the question: Can art truly rewrite history, or does it simply challenge us to see it differently? Watkiss’s work at RAMM, For the Ones Who Came Before …, invites us to ponder this. Running from February 10 to August 16, it’s more than an exhibition—it’s a call to dialogue. What stories have we overlooked, and whose voices deserve to be amplified? Share your thoughts below—let’s keep the conversation going.
